On faith: Gladwell had finished his reporting on Mike Reynolds, the father of a murdered teenage daughter who helped lead the movement for Three Strikes legislation in California. He thought he was done with that topic, but a minister friend of Gladwell's family suggested the writer talk with a parent who suffered the similar loss of a child, but responded differently. That led Gladwell to Wilma Derksen, a Manitoba woman with a Mennonite background who took the idea of forgiving those who trespass against you literally. Derksen's story, and the story of Huguenots in France who defied the Nazis, have led Gladwell back to faith. "In both cases, people were able to do extraordinary things because they were armed with faith. They were able to perform acts of courage because they came from godly traditions," he said in a Religion News Service interview.

Being Canadian: Gladwell, who lives in New York, was born in England, raised in Canada and has a West Indian background. I asked him to sort his ethnic identities into a pie chart. Amused, he thought about it a bit and responded, 50% Canadian, 25% English, 15% Jamaican and 10% American. "I try to be as Canadian as possible," he said. "We're interested in being nice, whether we are or not." Canadians are "proud of how reasonable we are," he said. Compared to Americans, "we're a little more inclined toward collective solutions." Canadians would rather have an experience, such as education, be "good for everyone as opposed to being very good for some." He attributes his storytelling impulse to his Jamaican heritage: he's been told he takes after his Jamaican grandfather. As far as the U.S. goes, Gladwell says "The wonderful thing about this country is you're permitted to retain all of your previous (ethnic) characteristics while being an American."

Writing for Grantland: Gladwell's a staff writer for The New Yorker, of course. But once in a while he and Bill Simmons, the poobah of Grantland, ESPN's longform sports and pop-culture site, publish their exchange of a long series of emails under the label Gladwell vs. Simmons. Their December exchange included banter about Chris Paul, Johnny Carson, the changing nature of becoming a celebrity, paranoid thrillers, creating Moneyball-type metrics for Hollywood, Chappaquiddick, Kobe Bryant, Leo DiCaprio, PEDs, the Penn State scandal, and more. Gladwell said he'd love to go 15 rounds more often with Simmons, who's a busy guy as a writer, podcaster, online impresario and talking head. "I'm the guy pleading at the door," Gladwell said.